I’VE HAD TO FIGHT FOR MORE TESTS TO BE CARRIED OUT IN HOME
A DUBLIN nursing home – which was the first to be hit by Covid earlier this year, with tragic results – has had to battle for further re-testing to be carried out after a staff member was confirmed as having the virus earlier this week.
Muriel O’Donnell, director of nursing at Millbrook Manor Nursing Home in Saggart, Co. Dublin, said she was terrified that history would repeat itself without more proactive support from the HSE and public health system.
In March, the home – whose house manager Rebecca Moorhead has played a key role in infection prevention and control – lost four out of 21 Covid patients. Fourteen staff members tested also tested positive for the virus at the time.
On Monday, the first positive result during the current wave of the virus was confirmed for an asymptomatic member of staff, following tests carried out on Friday, October 16. The staff member worked two 12-hour shifts at the home l ast Saturday and Sunday, October 17 and 18.
Another staff member was immediately put into isolation as a close contact, but the others were categorised as ‘casual contacts’.
Ms O’Donnell said: ‘I specifically requested all residents to be tested as per the guidelines for residential care facilities.
‘They [the Department of Public Health East at St Steevens’ Hospital] said they didn’t think it was necessary at this time.’
In an email seen by the Irish Daily Mail, a specialist in public health medicine at the hospital said the home should wait seven days before testing again.
‘Public health best evidence is that re-testing before day seven is likely to miss positive results as the virus may still be in the incubation phase at this point and so is therefore not recommended,’ they wrote. ‘I wish to advise you accordingly that the Department of Public Health East will not sanction re-testing of your staff until Day 7, [Sunday] October 25.’
Ms O’Donnell said that after further correspondence from herself, the department agreed to test a portion of the residents – those on the first floor where the staff member had been working.
‘This continued to cause myself and the management team huge concern,’ she said.
She said she registered every resident in the home for testing on the online swift-queue system, and the tests were done on Wednesday. She said: ‘Then, as it turns out, two residents’ results on the ground floor returned positive. Had I not registered these residents we would be in a very different place right now... I am still awaiting 15 residents’ test results and it is now over 48 hours since I tested them. All residents remain isolated at the present time.’
Ms O’Donnell added: ‘If speaking out about this can go some way to improving the system, thus preventing more infections, then that is a result. This HSE and public health system is not meeting the needs within the residential care setting at present.’
In response, the HSE said it cannot comment on individual cases or outbreaks for legal and ethical reasons. It added: ‘In general when our departments of public health respond to notified cases or outbreaks of Covid-19, they undertake a risk assessment of the situation and appropriate investigations are undertaken and control measures put in place. The HSE continues to provide a range of supports to all long- term residential facilities across the country’.
‘All residents remain isolated’